Good Stuff from Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Family. Karen Casey

Take a few minutes to review some of the times, recently, when you let laughter change how you felt in a particular situation. Also, think of a time when you could have responded with some humor but opted to stay stuck in a sour mood. If you could change that experience, how would it look?

       In the first three chapters, we have covered three significant characteristics that are keys to successfully overcoming the dark past that hounded so many of us. But there is more. Let's turn next to forgiveness and the profound power it wields in our lives.

      4

      Forgiving the Past and Growing Into the Present

      There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.

      Bryant H. McGill

      What is the miracle of forgiveness? How does it measure up as a miracle? First let me say that forgiving is perhaps the most important action we will ever take within the many relationships we cherish. Forgiveness can free us from the past: by letting someone off the hook for a bona fide putdown or other action that felt demeaning, or even a suspected action that we are obsessing over, or in many other ways. For instance, willingness to forgive a betrayal can seem unfathomable when first considered, but the release it offers us as soon as we have forgiven the perpetrator is palpable. The importance of forgiveness, of any action by another—lying, stealing, even the horror of sexual abuse—simply can't be overestimated. Until we let go of the very real or imagined transgressions of others, we will know no peace. None whatsoever!